Dee Discusses: Gilmore Girls Season 4

Oh season 4. You were the best of times, you were the worst of times. Okay not the worst of times, I’ll keep that for when the Christopher nonsense starts up again. This season had Luke and Lorelai finally get together in the finale, although it was very sweetly led up to a few episodes beforehand. Luke listens to a self-help tape and realizes that he loves Lorelai and doesn’t want to keep waiting around doing nothing. So he asks her to his sister’s wedding and brings her flowers, and after an argument at the Dragonfly, they kiss for the first time. Cue all the fans screaming in glee. But we had to deal with a lot of drama beforehand, naturally. The major plot arcs this season were the Dragonfly Inn opening, and man do I wish I could visit that place, and Rory’s first year in college. Throw in Lorelai’s temporary new boyfriend Jason, who goes into business with Richard against his father’s wishes, and Richard eventually betrays him to keep his wealth and position. Ouch. I remember thinking that Jason was probably going to do that himself, turn against Richard and bond with his father again. It’s a shame things turned out poorly for that guy; he was a weirdo, but not a bad guy.

The Dragonfly Inn took the whole season to put together. At first Lorelai and Sookie attempted to have their own catering business, although it didn’t go well because Sookie’s a ditz. They had to pour all of their money into it. Rory continued her deal with her grandparents in exchange for them paying for Yale, so her mother could afford the inn. And so the Gilmores weren’t cut out of the show. Lorelai and Sookie (and Michel!) have a lot of money problems, leading Lorelai to ask Luke for a loan. He became an investor, and that was before he and Lorelai started dating, so it didn’t have any questionable motives there. It was a good investment! The Inn looks amazing. It has horses. I want horses. Sookie has her son halfway through the season. Oh and before figuring out Lorelai was the one for him, Luke married his girlfriend on a boat between season three and four, and then they struggled before getting a divorce. Who cares though, right? We just wanted to see our OTP happen. Meanwhile in Rory land, she adjusts to life at Yale, and Paris shows up as her new roommate. YES. Paris is my all-time favorite character so I squealed when she showed up. She continues her life as an unstoppable force of nature, and has the best lines in the show. I will say that the second episode where Rory has separation anxiety and her mother stays with her, that was a little too far. I know Rory said herself that she knew she was being a baby, but come on guys. No way should Lorelai have stayed for her first night. She might be the cool mom, but the kids wouldn’t have gone “oh wow Rory that was fun having your mom hang with us.” They would’ve gone “who the hell needs their mother to stay the first night in college.” So that always made me roll my eyes.

Jess returns. Oh joy. At least it was temporary. We do get to meet his mother Liz, and Liz is fantastic. She walks that good line of being a terrible mother, she’s ditzy and wishy washy, but still being sweet and down to earth. She eventually gets married in Stars Hollow, although Luke is grumpy because he never approves of her boyfriends. I like TJ; he doesn’t take crap from Luke. Luke’s all grumbly and judgmental, and TJ’s of the ‘whatever I don’t need your approval’ attitude. And not in the rebellious jerk type of way. Thumbs up TJ. Jess agrees to come back for the wedding because Luke puts pressure on him, and he admits he feels like he owes his uncle after what they went through. He listens to the same self-help tape and asks Rory to run off with him. Thank god she says NOPE. Partly because he’s completely unreliable (duh), and because she’s started having feelings for Dean again. Sigh. So this leads to one of the most controversial things that happened on the show. Dean’s married, he married way too young, and he was not over Rory in the least. Luke knew this because at Dean’s bachelor party he drunkenly confessed. Dean and Rory are swept away by their emotions, and they have sex. Rory loses her virginity to her married ex-boyfriend. YUP. Lorelai comes back and she is furious, of course, pointing out how unacceptable that behavior is, and Rory decides this is the time to blow her good girl image entirely and be a brat. She does break down crying when she calls Dean and his wife answers the phone. I do like that the show allows the characters to mess up. A lot. I mean Lorelai ran out on her wedding to Max, that wasn’t great. They are not good at relationships, the Gilmores. Even the big Rory/Dean shippers admit this was pretty ugly, but the show doesn’t pretend otherwise. Dean and Rory are not let off the hook for how much their actions hurt others, but more on that next season.

In other storylines, Lane’s boyfriend Dave disappears, because Scott Cohen was cast on The OC. But she moves in with her bandmates Zack and Brian after being kicked out of her house by her mother. Mrs. Kim found all her rock albums and Lane confessed being in the band, and she was trying the tough love approach I guess. I wasn’t a huge fan of that character, that’s pretty rough to do to a teenager. Lane stayed at Yale for a little while before moving in with the boys. Mrs. Kim is panicked when she sees her living with boys, but Lorelai reassures him they’re more like girls, since it won’t be inappropriate. Halfway through the season Richard’s mother dies, leaving them all a little shell shocked. Emily finds a letter she wrote telling Richard not to marry her, so she’s of the ‘fuck that woman’ persuasion. I don’t blame her in the least. That woman was horrible to Emily, and not particularly nice to anyone else either. Just saying. Team Emily in this case. Paris starts an affair with a professor forty years older than her. Yuck. The show definitely doesn’t make this seem romantic or okay either, everyone’s of the ‘whaaaaaat’ mindset. Especially since the guy picks a new young woman every semester, apparently. Gross. You deserve better, Paris.

Overall this was a great season. The worst of times sort of refers to Rory and Dean cheating, that was cringeworthy, although I can’t say I find the storyline out of character. Rory’s a good person on the whole, but that means she has a lot of teen angsty stuff gathered up in her somewhere. I also think she has a privileged, living-in-a-bubble mentality, where Dean belongs to her and she’s his true love so therefore it’s okay. We all make stupid mistakes as teenagers. Some of us more than others. Bad choice. Not that I put the majority of that on Rory. Dean was the real cad here; he was the one married, who had vows and a life. He definitely deserves the biggest portion of blame here, because he’s also supposed to be a good and loyal person. Tsk tsk to you both. I never trust cheaters, so I would’ve already been like big red flag here, kids. Otherwise excited applause for Lorelai and Luke! The progress over this season felt very natural, and their first kiss was classic them. Arguing and whip-fast dialogue leading to passionate embrace. But the question is where do they go from here? Welllll let’s see how season five goes.

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While I agree that Rory cheating with Dean was cringeworthy, I also agree that it didn’t really feel out of character. I’m always disappointed when she does something dumb because I feel like she’s supposed to be smarter than that, but it happens to the best of us. For me the worst of times on this show comes at the end of next season and then into season 6 when Rory drops out and she and Lorelai stop speaking. Hated that part so much since their combination best friends and mother/daughter relationship is pretty much the foundation of the whole show and my favorite part.

Yeah I think for Rory she always tries to be the good girl, the smart girl, and that means when she makes mistakes, they are big mistakes. She has giant blind spots. So for people who make a little mistakes over the years and mess up but learn from it, like most teenagers, they don’t get this drastic. But both Rory and Dean were overall good kids, they rarely made mistakes, they didn’t learn from the little things, so they go from that to REALLY BAD DECISION. And yeah I agree about when they stop talking. At least after Rory leaves in this debacle, they just assume a lot of things happen off camera. If I remember she leaves for like a summer with Emily, but they summarize that so we don’t have to suffer through her and Lorelai not talking.